Off-Biennale: A collective for the arts
The OFF-Biennale is a curatorial collective made of six women based in Budapest. They work with other creatives and institutions in Hungary, Eastern Europe, and around the world without any state cultural funding.
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00:00 The Hungarian capital of Budapest in early summer 2023.
00:06 A place where authoritarian policies are restricting the free arts scene.
00:12 The Off Biennale Budapest is pushing back.
00:15 With symposia like "The Season of Darkness",
00:18 female cultural activists are countering the contemporary political gloom.
00:25 Only these interactions and collaborations can save us these days coming together.
00:34 And the war in Ukraine are the two major factors which influence our,
00:40 not only this symposia, but our daily life as well.
00:44 Presentations and panels ran for three days at this independent cultural venue, Neolgisfère.
00:50 The Off Biennale's curatorial team is made up of six women.
00:54 Back in 2013, one of them came up with the idea of an alternative biennale
01:00 to counter predominant state-sponsored art.
01:03 Hajnákás Simódyi.
01:05 Only artists who don't accept state funding can take part.
01:09 Not so easy.
01:11 In Eastern Europe, artists, curators, not many people have the opportunity to boycott the state.
01:17 It's quite impossible on an individual level, but a project can do it.
01:23 I think that was one of the draws,
01:25 one of the reasons why all these people started to approach, react really positively.
01:31 I think it felt good to start actually doing something together.
01:39 The approach made waves.
01:41 In 2022, they were invited to documenta in Kassel.
01:45 Together with students and the design collective Resetas Urbanas,
01:49 the Off team conceived and built a bridge out of recycled materials.
01:54 They invited us to the documenta, it was amazing.
02:03 At the end it was real.
02:05 Not only during the 100 days of the documenta, involving the kids, the students, some families, neighbours,
02:13 and in that process that is invisible for people who went later, it was for me the most beautiful experience to build a ballet together.
02:23 His words echo the Budapest team's guiding principle, building something together.
02:29 For example, an international exhibition on violence against women runs during the symposium.
02:35 And there's a meeting of a new collective of small-scale biennales from Prague, Kiev, Warsaw, Riga and Budapest, of course.
02:43 It's called the Eastern European Biennial Alliance.
02:48 None of us have this maintaining infrastructure that usually biennial or larger scale institutions have,
02:57 so we have to put together what we have and share either the experiences, the resources, the knowledge, the network.
03:05 The Ukraine war has brought them closer together, and they're now planning to collaborate on upcoming art biennales in Eastern Europe.
03:13 Sergei Klimko is already working on the next Kiev Biennale, set to take place in fall.
03:20 He's hoping to reinvigorate the local art scene.
03:23 It's very important to reconnect them to the actual cultural scene of Kiev
03:29 and to allow them to work on the topic they previously worked on
03:35 and around the topics which are important now for people who are still there.
03:42 Much of the work shown in the off-biennale turns the spotlight on marginalized groups.
03:52 Roma MoMA is a long-term project exploring art and activism with and by Sinti and Roma.
03:59 The goal is not to establish another brick and mortar building for Roma art.
04:04 Roma people are dispersed all over Europe and beyond,
04:07 so the question is rather how to change the policies of museums
04:10 and how to acknowledge the contribution of Romani people to our culture.
04:16 Such is this performance by Luna de Rosa, a multidisciplinary artist from the Roma diaspora,
04:22 which looks at attitudes to Roma against a backdrop of rising nationalism.
04:27 Even though they are an integral part of the society,
04:33 there are less opportunities for them to showcase their amazing works.
04:37 Not only show, but also share with the communities,
04:41 which I think the off-biennale is doing a great job because they try to reach out to different audiences.
04:48 The Goethe-Institut Budapest has supported the off-biennale from day one.
04:54 This year its curatorial team is being awarded a Goethe Medal
04:58 for its work promoting independent artists and helping them network across Europe.
05:03 It's an honor, but the team is well aware it still has its work cut out for it.
05:09 We always hope that we create some kind of a turbulence.
05:14 And sometimes we are very engaged, we invest a lot, and this turbulence just doesn't happen.
05:20 I wonder if a Goethe Medal is enough to create this turbulence.
05:26 We'll see.
05:28 The off-biennale Budapest, playing a key role in the alliance of independent Eastern European art festivals
05:36 that's shaping new forms of international solidarity and creating turbulence in the process.
05:43 (gentle music)